S. L. SHOFNER

CLASS OF 1999
 

S. L. Shofner can best be described as a natural athlete.  He first started playing tennis in his senior year of high school.  He then went to Central State University in Edmond where he played four years of tennis.  He won three conference singles titles and in 1955 he became Central State's first ever National Singles Champion.  Not bad for a young man who went to college on a basketball scholarship and played semi-pro basketball for three years after graduation.

He was ranked # 1 in both Oklahoma and the Missouri Valley in Men's 35 and 45 Singles and Doubles over a 12 year period.  In 1969, he won the National Men's 35 Indoor Championships in Singles and Doubles with Ollie Gresham.  In 1970, he was nationally ranked # 1 in Men's 35 Singles and # 2 in Doubles.  He also won tournaments in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, and Arkansas.  He continued to play competitively until a degenerative hip, followed by hip replacement surgery, forced him to hang up his racket.

S. L. is a member of the Central State University (now the University of Central Oklahoma) Athletic Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Missouri Valley Tennis Association Hall of Fame in 1998.  He is one of the five original members of the Oklahoma Tennis Hall of Fame.